First top mount single turbo 370Z

98intrigue

Ughhhh... Lutz is starting to post and advertise on Nissan forums. I've written 2 long replies explaining my story and by the time I hit the "post" button, the threads have already been deleted. It's because they are too damn cheap to pay for any kind of sponsorship. ****, I hate Lutz!

__________________

98intrigue

My half-assed reply to what I was going to post before the thread was deleted.



I dropped the car off at Lutz Performance at the end of April and picked it up the night I left for ZDayz on May 19th...Yes, that was a quick turnaround time, but my car was the only car that was having any fabricating done. So I do not think 3+ weeks is too far fetched. In the end though, if that was too soon of a time frame, Lutz should have said so. At the time, Lutz seemed great...well, really just their fabricator (Shawn). He was texting me making sure I made it up safely and asking for updates while I was up there.

I drove the car to ZDayz and enjoyed it, other than the overheating issues. On the way home, about 30 minutes after leaving Fontana Village, I burnt through one of the power steering hoses because the uppipe was fabricated laying against the hose. I made it to GA where the car went into limp mode due to the passenger side wiring harness left dangling on top of the passenger manifold. I spent $250 having the car towed to Z1. My repair bill was $2k. This does not include the 4 days (local Nissans didn't stock a power steering pump) of work I missed out on and I had to pay for a hotel. They had to rewire the entire passenger side wiring harness and I needed a new power steering pump because the pump had seized and the pulley snapped off. The 140-amp fuse on the battery also failed because the wiring harness was burnt through.

I make it home and the car goes back to Lutz so they can redo my intake piping. That was clearly an issue from the beginning regarding driveability and tuning. Since the intake piping was different diameters, one bank would see much more air than the other bank, netting in extremely rich cruising AFRs (10/12 mpg city/highway) and not allowing me to get into boost because the AFRs would get too lean. Lutz said they would redo it at no cost to me. My car sits there for 2 weeks with nothing done. They preferred to bridge my MAF wiring instead. My car was in the shop for 1 month to have a 30 minute wiring job done. When I went to pick up my car (Friday) for a professional photoshoot I had booked, one of my tires were flat because it had 2 nails in it. No photoshoot. I go to pick up the car again the following Wednesday (FYI Lutz Performance is a 45 minute drive from my house), and the tire was still flat...nothing was done. So I finally go pick up the car the following Monday with the tire patched and the MAF wiring bridged, even though I asked and they said they would redo the intake piping...but they suggested bridging the MAF wiring and they are the experts. The car still ran like crap, granted I never had it retuned to see if it bridging the MAFs would fix the issue.

I take my car to another friend and we redid the intake piping and intercooler setup to dual 3" equal-length intake piping and a 2-1 intercooler...the way it should have been done from the beginning. We also replaced the POS band clamp that Lutz installed and bowed the edge of the clamp to make the piping fit inside (causing a bad exhaust leak), which Lutz replaced once already to try to solve the issue. Since we redid the piping, I had to unbridge the MAF wiring. I called Lutz to see how to unbridge it and I was told and I quote "just cut the bridge wires". So I do so because the experts told me to do so. The car is in limp mode. A few hours of brainstorming and I decide to finally peel back the wire sheating and found this



That was my last dealing with Lutz. Out of allll the troubles I had, they only compensated me by taking 2 hrs of labor of my total bill ($210).



Let's be realistic... You are correct in saying there are no guarantees when adding forced induction to an NA motor.

I went to Bradenton and ran a 11.85 @ 119mph on my 3rd pass. Based on that mph (460-480whp), my car was well below the limits of the VQ37. The boost was turned up from 12.6psi to 13.1psi on the next run when the motor started ticking.

The turbo kit did fail.
I'm sorry, but I fail to see how $12k was a budget build.
Lutz did all the fabricating. S&R did the initial tune.

__________________

O&G

wow, reminds me of a shop here in town that is no longer is business. RAWR, gives me nightmares.

__________________
O&G's Build/Journal <---(1st lowmount single turbo treeseventy)
Built Engine Thread
2011 F-250 Build/Journal

Footloose301

Ridiculous. Definitely staying away fom that place.

__________________

2010 40th Anniversary 370Z

fuct

wow!

ANMVQ

:/ wholy

__________________
14 Q50 AWD, ARK, ECUTEK (SEB), Takda,

roplusbee

All I can say is WOW! Gonna send you a PM dude............

__________________
2007 350Z NISMO #0618: Zerolift | UPREV | F.I. | Greddy | Competition Clutch | Injector Dynamics | Aeromotive | Pioneer | JL

LMBmikeZ

Damn dude bet you wish you went with a gtm build now......... Sucks cause yours would've been so unique being top mount!

O well looks like TT is the answer for boosting our engines.

__________________
CUSTOM NISMO | BERK | H&R | STANCE | SPL everything | EVO-R | 34 Setrab | WHITELINE | Redline | Carkitcompany | Zspeed | UpRev | SEIBON

roplusbee

Not so sure that I can agree with that statement, however TT seems to be the method with the mosr R&D. It just looks to me like someone wanted to make money instead of doing what was necessary to make things work properly. Either that or just lazy and stubborn.

98:

Keep you head up dude. I'm pulling for you!

__________________
2007 350Z NISMO #0618: Zerolift | UPREV | F.I. | Greddy | Competition Clutch | Injector Dynamics | Aeromotive | Pioneer | JL

O&G

Got to read the whole thread, boosting is boosting, 98 got mistreated and screwed over. His system worked but the damage had already been done by the previous shop. Good luck bro, I had a similar story with my past car. Keep us posted!

__________________
O&G's Build/Journal <---(1st lowmount single turbo treeseventy)
Built Engine Thread
2011 F-250 Build/Journal

Isamu

lutz can suck it!

__________________

黒子 ('Kuroko')
Project: SuperNova Owner/Operator and Lead designer @BlackGuard Aeroworks

roplusbee

See man........we do agree! I was hoping that it could be salvaged even though the motor had/has some problems now. Still have my fingers crossed though!

__________________
2007 350Z NISMO #0618: Zerolift | UPREV | F.I. | Greddy | Competition Clutch | Injector Dynamics | Aeromotive | Pioneer | JL

98intrigue

I still prefer single... I just would have NEVER taken my car to Lutz had I known who/what I know now.
My head is heavy, but I'm trying! I appreciate it
Yup. And to think I was "this close" to having the car 100%. That's what makes me sick to my stomach.
<---they can suck that
I still haven't put up my turbo kit for a reason... We shall see. I really want to get rid of it, but may have no choice but to rebuild it.

__________________

O&G

If you wouldn't have done this build my build would have been a massive headache and maybe even a fail. Stay positive, **** has to turn around! Hola if you need anything.

__________________
O&G's Build/Journal <---(1st lowmount single turbo treeseventy)
Built Engine Thread
2011 F-250 Build/Journal

VQStryker

It will work out, just stick with it